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Gas Line Repair in Salem, SC
Only 13% of households in Salem use gas of any kind — 2% on mains and 11% on tank propane. Gas line work is the exception here rather than the rule.
Read this first
Only 13% of homes in Salem use gas for heat. That makes a gas line the exception rather than the rule, and the ones that exist are usually tank supplies owned on the property instead of utility service lines ending at a meter.
Source: US Census Bureau, American Community Survey table B25040; the service line boundary is 49 CFR § 192.3.
If you smell gas right now
Leave the building on foot. Do not use a phone or a light switch inside. Call 911 and your gas utility from somewhere else, and do not call us — we are a referral service, not an emergency line. The full list, in order.
How Salem is supplied
With gas this uncommon locally, the useful question is which arrangement you have rather than what the town does. A mains connection has a meter and a federal boundary; a tank has neither.
| Households in Salem | Share |
|---|---|
| Utility (mains) gas | 2% |
| Bottled or tank propane | 11% |
| Electricity | 84% |
| Fuel oil and kerosene | under 1% |
| Wood and everything else | 3% |
Source: US Census Bureau, American Community Survey 5-year estimates, table B25040 (house heating fuel), 2023 release. Universe: 2,754 occupied housing units. The table counts heating fuel rather than pipework. A house on mains gas almost certainly has a service line; the Census does not say so directly and neither do we. Service line definition: 49 CFR § 192.3, via PHMSA interpretation PI-12-0003.
Across South Carolina as a whole, 31% of households are on mains gas and 3% on tank propane. Salem sits 29 points below the state on mains and 9 points above it on propane. That is the gap a statewide number papers over, and the reason the figures above are this town’s rather than the state’s.
Before anyone digs on the property
8-1-1 is free and nationwide, and PHMSA gives callers a 99 percent chance of avoiding an incident, injury or worse. Ask them what they will and will not mark: privately owned buried lines on your own side of the meter frequently are not covered.
Source: PHMSA, 811 Day.
What to ask whoever quotes it
Ask them to describe the fault before they price it. "The line needs replacing" is not a diagnosis, and on a buried run the difference between one damaged point and a line at the end of its life is most of the cost.
Other South Carolina towns we route in
- Piedmont 28% mains gas · 2% tank propane
- Little River 11% mains gas · 2% tank propane
- Graniteville 35% mains gas · 2% tank propane
- Chester 41% mains gas · 3% tank propane
- Blackstock 19% mains gas · 8% tank propane
Checking a plumber in South Carolina
South Carolina licenses are issued by the South Carolina Residential Builders Commission, Department of Labor, Licensing and Regulation, which publishes a public search you can use before work begins. South Carolina requires a residential plumber license for work over $500, according to the Commission.
Gas work is separately permitted and separately licensed in most jurisdictions, so ask specifically about gas rather than plumbing in general.
For repair work, not for a suspected leak.If you can smell gas, leave and call 911 or your utility from outside; this is the wrong number for that. For everything else — a line, a meter, an appliance connection — we will route you to a contractor covering your area, free of charge to you. Non-emergency work in Salem goes through this number as well.
Call (888) 752-8038